


bixby camden bardstown

by entanglement



Series: places [1]
Category: Fargo (2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 08:48:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1934502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglement/pseuds/entanglement
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>going home</p>
            </blockquote>





	bixby camden bardstown

**Bixby, OK**

"No one's gonna blame you."

The girl's blonde hair moves and cascades beautifully over her small shoulder as she turns her head towards Lorne's voice. As if she can read his mind, her hand immediately moves to her cardigan sleeve and pulls it over the reddish purple bloom of broken blood vessels that curls around her wrist in an obvious, yet often ignored pattern. People don't tend to give away that they've noticed and the fact that someone has seems to invoke a terrible fear that _he's_ going to hear.

Lorne smiles brightly, though. A long practiced, warm curl of his lips that people can't help but stick around to let wash over them. His voice is gentle as well. It's a calm in this girl's stormy life, so she lets him finish his thought, "When it happens, you'll realize how easy it was to do and you'll regret not doing it sooner. No one's gonna blame you. They'll call it self-defense."

"Get lost, creep," she spits, turning back to the convenience store clerk to pay for the carton of cigarettes on the counter. Lorne shrugs. When threatened, people always resort to defense mechanisms.

A few months later, when he's passing through the state, he sees her face on the front of the local newspaper with a story about her murder conviction.

\--

**Camden, NJ**

It's not a bounty that'll make him rich, but it's a quick hit to keep him busy on his way out of the state. 

The city official he has to retire barely puts up a fight because the people in this city know that death is inevitable. They're steeped in death. It hangs around the necks of everyone he sees shuffling along the streets in the early morning as he makes his way towards the next job. In a place like this, it almost feels like he could've dropped the councilman in the lobby of City Hall and walked free.

Walt Whitman died here. He believed in a world that was teeming with proof of a Creator, but the only thing Camden proves is the existence of a destroyer.

\--

**Bardstown, KY**

It feels good to be home. 

It's been too long and he's changed identities too many times to be recognized, but hometowns still hold the strange magic of nostalgia that even the thick layer of dust that time leaves behind can't fully obscure. He drives around town, indulging in memories until he stops at a tavern near Wickland. There's really no better way to celebrate a visit home to Kentucky but a glass of bourbon.

He slides onto a seat at the bar beside two men that he doesn't realize are arguing until one slams his glass onto the bar and wanders off to angrily poke at the grimy touchscreen jukebox at the far end of the bar, leaving his friend to smolder and continue picking at the label of the beer bottle in front of him. Lorne glances over his shoulder to see the other man still struggling to charm the machine into taking a wrinkled dollar bill and then back to his friend, still grumbling softly and peppering the bar in front of him with little bits of paper. There's nothing on the TVs behind the bar, so he might as well find entertainment elsewhere.

"You gonna let him talk to you like that?" Lorne drawls, mimicking the man's slurred speech. His voice takes the man's accent too and it's a comfortable fit that feels like sliding his feet into a worn pair of boots. He really doesn't even know what the argument was about but he adds on a shake of his head and mutters, "disrespectful."

"Yeah. Disrespectful," the drunk repeats.

"I wouldn't let the bastard think he can get away talkin' to me like that."

"Yeah. Bastard."

The pep talk seems to have given the drunk some confidence because as his friend returns from the jukebox, he moves to drop out of his chair and pulls his fist back like he's gonna deck him, but Lorne moves a foot to tip his stool and send him flailing onto a guy sitting at a table near the bar. Unsurprisingly, this incites a shouting match between the guys at the table and the drunk friends which quickly devolves to a fight. It's almost too easy.

The bartender rushes off to call the cops while Lorne watches, savoring his drink in small sips as the fight snowballs into a brawl.


End file.
